The Art of War

Wee Willy IINorth American P-51D Mustang
In the past year, we have started two new collections here on Ottosen Photography. One of these new collections is The Art of War. This collection was a complete accident, we never had any intention of creating this one and it only came about through a recent visit to Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona. During this visit we were able to tour their Restoration Hangar as see two Bell OH-58D Kiowa Warriors that they had recently received and were getting ready for display. They both had the Punisher logo painted on them and I wanted to get a photo of the helicopter with the Punisher logo, but I was struggling to get a good angle on the entire aircraft. In all honesty, I always seem to struggle when taking photos in a museum, I always have trouble finding that great angle that reduces background clutter. This time I decided to get in close to capture the Punisher logo and I just let everything else fall into place. The following image is the result, and it's the image that started this new collection.

After seeing this image come to life and the response it received, I decided that The Art of War was something that I wanted to pursue. Like I said, it all started at the Pima Air & Space Museum, but it has now taken us to the Commemorative Air Force's Airbase Arizona, Planes of Fame, the Palm Springs Air Museum, Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport, and Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport. Since we don't want to limit this collection to museum displays and warbirds, we will also be adding more current military aircraft in the future.

This collection not only displays the art on these aircraft, but hopefully it can help preserve the art in the future. Some of these aircraft will disappear and some of the art will fade over time, and when that happens these markings could be lost forever. For now, this collection is just something to have fun with, but we're hoping that down the road, as the collection builds, we can possibly turn it into some kind of book or other large display project.